Ah, what price vanity? For one woman, it’s overcoming her off-the-chart fear of needles. She’ll tell you about her spider “vains”…

No one actually loves needles. Anyone who says they do is either a) lying or b) one of those uber-crafty people who sit around crocheting and needle-pointing all day. But my own personal needle phobia tends toward the extreme.

On the up side, that’s a marvelous deterrent for things like, oh, heroin addiction; on the downside, it causes incredible anxiety in medical situations: I’m known to swoon during blood draws.

I’ll cross county lines in pursuit of the nasal spray flu vaccine rather than stiff-upper-lip-it through a flu shot at my local pharmacy. So if there’s an even slightly more palatable alternative, I’ll avoid the business end of a needle any day.

So what could possibly possess me to get 250 injections in my lower extremities … voluntarily? It’s called sclerotherapy, in which a detergent solution washes away spider veins’ inner lining and poof! The unsightly webs disappear as the body reabsorbs the dead tissue.

And then there’s vanity, pure and simple. Vanity trumps fear and loathing – apparently – even for a needle-phobe like me. Those 250 needle sticks held the promise of smooth, sumptuous, kissable legs.

I don’t have beautiful legs. I’ve never had beautiful legs. While my sister got my dad’s long, lean legs, I inherited my mother’s predisposition for short, ropey, veiny legs. I thought I’d long ago made peace with the fact that while my gams would never be mistaken for a swimsuit model’s, they took me where I wanted to go … and they were at least presentable enough in a skirt. But aging has a way of making you reconsider.

I’d been fine with the whole “getting older” thing … till I began to wonder if I was starting to look my age. I’d never been obsessive about my looks — as Bruce Springsteen might say, “You ain’t a beauty, but, eh, you’re all right.”

But now I was starting to pay attention. The few random spider veins that had merely irked me in my 30s, had by 45, spread into a substantial web that made the area south of my knees look like a road map of green and purple highways.

They were one more reminder, like the strands of gray I hid under hair color and the smile lines around my mouth I’d had my dermatologist subtly smooth out with “filler” last year, that aging “gracefully” was taking more effort these days.

Pregnancy makes spider veins worse, so there was no point in doing it before I got pregnant, I reasoned. Better to wait till after I had a baby, I told myself. Well, now the “baby” is in elementary school. If I delayed much longer, I could use my pretty new legs to push a walker.

Which is why early one morning, not too long ago, I was lying on an exam table at The Murray Center in Orlando, slowly passing out as a nurse jabbed at my leg veins. As the room went gray, my hearing tuned out and I lost all feeling in my arms and hands, I had to remind myself I’d actually signed up – and signed a waiver – for this.

Whoever said beauty is pain was clearly having their spider veins done.

Amazingly, this was actually my second trip to cosmetic surgeon/phlebologist Roger Murray’s office – a place I’d begun referring to as “Dr. Murray’s House O’ Pain.” Two weeks earlier I’d had one round of sclerotherapy (“sclero” for short) as the good doctor shot my veins full of polidocanol, the sclerosing solution that would effectively kill the veins – if the procedure didn’t kill me first.

“Where’d you train?” I’d hissed through clenched teeth as Dr. Murray injected the polidocanol 10 tortuous ccs at a time. “The Marquis de Sade School of Medicine?”

“You know, dentists have one of the highest suicide rates because they cause people so … much … pain,” I growled out as he zeroed in on the bony area around my ankle. “I bet phlebologists are a close second.”

I sucked in sharply as a needle pierced my skin. “I hope you’re not going to hang yourself tonight!”

He ignored me.

Now I was back, not for more “sclero,” but to drain the hematomas – blood trapped in the collapsing veins that would stain my skin if not removed. Know how they drain hematomas? They poke holes in the vein with a needle, then squeeze it out like a pimple.

“You going to use some anesthetic for this?” I started hyperventilating as the nurse prepped the needle.

“The needles are tiny. You’ll barely feel it,” she assured me.

Famous last words.

Five minutes and several excruciating jabs later, she was tilting the head of the exam table downwards to get my feet above my head and bring me around.

Clearly I was out of my mind, I thought as the concerned looking nurse stuffed Fig Newtons into my mouth to stabilize my blood sugar. I was completely crazy. To willingly let someone poke me with sharp instruments all so I could … what? Look good in a skirt?

Stop it! Stop it! Stop it! This was nutsy. This hurt! Well, no more. Not one more poke. Not one more prick. Not one more bruise. I didn’t want to see another needle … ever. Call in the dogs, I was done.

And then in came Dr. Murray to see how I was doing. “Looks good,” he says examining his handiwork. “You need some clean up here.” He tapped the front of my left leg. “There’ll be some minor imperfections, but do one more round of sclero and from across the room your legs will look perfect.”

Perfect?!? Really? I could have perfect legs? I’ve never had perfect legs.

Then I considered the pain. I considered the anxiety in anticipating the pain. I considered the 250 additional injections and the hematoma draining that would surely follow. I weighed all that against finally having beautiful legs.

It was a tough call. But sometimes a gal’s gotta do what a gal’s gotta do.

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